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Michael Higgins: Liberal DND chief wonders, what even is ethics?

Senior bureaucrat who got someone she knew a job casts herself as a hero for ethics breach

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The sordid little affair involving Christiane Fox, one of Canada’s most senior government officials, in getting an acquaintance a job within the public service is made all the more distasteful because of her blindness to her faults and her casual disregard for accepting any responsibility. 

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Worse, it casts a blight over the public service and diminishes the office of the ethics commissioner when Fox, currently deputy minister at the Department of National Defence, tries to wave away so easily the fact that she has been found guilty of a serious ethical failing. 

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In a defiant appearance before a House Commons committee on Monday, Fox tried to minimize her involvement in the hiring of Björn Charles, a Black acquaintance, and all but cast herself as the hero. 

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The whole matter was about increasing diversity, she said. She had spent her whole career putting diversity at the forefront of what she did. 

This is supposed to explain why she went out of her way to get Charles a job in 2023 within her then department — Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada — when he was at that time a gym manager, did not speak French, did not know software and had no government expertise or experience. 

Well, she told the committee, in some departments there were “systemic barriers and there were resistance to change. And so genuinely, as a leader, I believe in these issues. I believe it is important to lead by example.” 

This was the same saintly defence she used on Konrad von Finckenstein, the ethics commissioner, who was having none of it. 

It was simply not “credible,” he said. 

Two witnesses, an acting director general and an office manager within IRCC, testified that the diversity aspect wasn’t mentioned to them. Even Charles, the man being hired, wasn’t told that he was an equity candidate, said the commissioner in his report. 

“Clearly, the true intent behind her interventions” was to get him a job, he said. 

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Having tried to present herself with the best possible motivation, Fox then blamed underperforming colleagues. 

“I have to think about the role that I occupy and whether or not it’s best to administer change differently,” she told the committee in relation to the hire, adding, “But this was a context of trying to change an underperforming unit within the department that occupied a lot of my attention.” 

Not surprisingly, staff reacted badly to having a non-French speaking, unqualified person foisted upon them. 

“Many assumed he had been personally brought in by someone who knew him. Evidence also shows that senior staff referred to him as ‘the DM’s friend’,” said the ethics commissioner, who noted how one person testified that morale had been greatly affected. 

After blaming the underperformers and highlighting her noble motivations at the committee, Fox also minimized her relationship with Charles. 

He was someone she went to university with 25 years ago, she said.  

But in reading the ethics commissioner’s report we also find out: Fox’s spouse worked as a basketball coach at Carleton University and knew Charles as “part of the university’s broader basketball community.” In fact, Charles told the ethics commissioner that Fox’s spouse was his basketball coach between 2001-2004. Also, he said Fox and her spouse had friends in common and that he saw them at barbecues and basketball events every couple of years. 

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Fox and Charles were acquaintances rather than friends, as the ethics commissioner found, but neither was he some guy she hadn’t seen for 25 years. 

Fox also downplayed her role in the help she offered. According to her testimony before the committee, she was asked by an assistant deputy minister to pass on relevant CVs and she did “as requested.” 

But she did more than that. 

She sent Charles an internal briefing document to help when meeting officials; she spoke to him after his interview and she intervened with staff when they were thinking of offering him a lower position. 

Staff, said the ethics commissioner, “felt pressured” to bring Charles onboard. 

What was the outcome? He was hired but a year later, amid “performance issues,” he was told his position would not be renewed. 

But no matter, because Fox came to his rescue again in 2024 in her then new role as deputy Clerk of the Privy Council and associate secretary to the cabinet, one of the most senior public servants in Canada. 

Charles contacted her to say he was leaving IRCC and she told him to send his resume to her assistant. Fox then informed the human resources assistant deputy manager at the Privy Council Office that Charles’s resume was on its way. 

When he was invited into a meeting, Fox met with him and then introduced him to the senior managers. 

So a bit more than forwarding an email. 

Meanwhile, in November 2024, having been given an expedited Top Secret clearance pass, Charles started working as an analyst in the Privy Council Office, the department directly supporting the prime minister and cabinet. 

From her committee appearance, one senses that Fox — who said she needed to “reflect” on her actions — feels maligned, misunderstood and her motives misjudged. 

However, those reflections should include her apparent disingenuous answers to the committee, her self-aggrandizing before members and that it was particularly ignoble and shoddy to throw “underperforming” colleagues under the bus. 

She might also reflect that the ethics commissioner found she used her position to improperly get Charles preferential treatment thus contravening the Conflict of Interest Act. 

However, her lack of regret and her failure to apologize shows she does not accept the report despite “acknowledging” it. 

Fox can get away with her facile response, because before her there have been so many others, especially the government of the last 11 years, who have treated the ethics commissioner and his office with indifference. 

Unfortunately, these people can’t be shamed into doing the right thing because they have no shame. 

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